Publications

As part of a larger ESRC-funded project on the political economies of school exclusions in the UK, this research examines alternative provision (AP). AP is where children and young people at risk of exclusion are removed from mainstream education. The AP sector does not provide a transitional pathway. Instead it is a complex disarray of…

There are widespread calls for increased demographic diversity in science, often linked to the epistemic claim that including more perspectives will improve the quality of the knowledge produced. By distinguishing between demographic and epistemic diversity, we show that this is only true some of the time. There are cases where increasing demographic diversity will not…

This article explores the complex relationship between civil society, social inequality, and nationhood through examining the motivations of elite members of Welsh civil society as they volunteer to serve on the boards of a wide range of Welsh charities. We interviewed nearly 60 trustees and patrons, all of whom enjoyed successful and influential careers in…

Over the last decade or so, the rate of growth of academic publications involving discussion of ‘citizen science’ and ‘community science’, and similar variants, has risen exponentially. These fluid terms, with no fixed definition, cover a continuum of public participation within a range of scientific activities. It is, therefore, apposite and timely to examine the…

This study investigates the evolving demand for graduate skills in the British workforce, leveraging a task-based approach with data from the Skills and Employment Survey Series. Focused on the changing importance of job tasks related to graduate skills, the research explores the mapping of these tasks to educational attainment, discerns the price employers pay for…

This paper is concerned with the reproduction of rural elites and the role of volunteering and participation in rural civil society institutions. Set in the context of popular discourses of the gentleman farmer and the agricultural elite as historic (as opposed to contemporary) leaders in the countryside, this research extends longstanding debates on rural class…

Although attention has been paid to return migration internationally, research studies on why Chinese overseas doctoral graduates return to China are few. A study that considers gendered motivations has yet to be found. Using a qualitative study with 31 Chinese overseas doctoral graduate returnees, this study examines factors influencing graduates’ reasons for returning to China…

The Soviet Union ended on 31 December 1991 and was replaced by the Russian Federation. This raised hopes of a Russia with a market economy and a political democracy where citizens would have equal rights and responsibilities under the constitutional rule of law rather than government by state bureaucracy and a kleptocracy of economic oligarchs….

Advances in online data collection spurred on by a pandemic springboard have been well recognised, but less attention has been given to corresponding approaches in recruitment. This article addresses this gap by examining whether recruitment challenges can be overcome by utilising personalised recordings to recruit interviewees. Developed to engage elite interviewees in challenging circumstances, this…

How did the coronavirus pandemic affect the subjective well-being (SWB) of children? In this paper, we use data from the Children’s World Survey, encompassing 9,684 children aged 9 to 15 residing in nine European countries. Our goal is to evaluate the influence of both material —access to digital communication devices— and immaterial factors —information sources…